The first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed by Chinese doctors in November 2019. Rather than being shared with the global community, news of the viral outbreak was censored by the Chinese government. Since that time, more than 66,500 lives have been lost globally.
Though the pandemic has brought tremendous uncertainty to the global economy, it has also inspired the crypto mining industry to turn a crisis into an opportunity by taking the lead in promoting transparency and freedom of speech in China.
Transparency empowers the mining industry
On April 3, twelve major Chinese crypto mining companies came together with leading Chinese blockchain media companies to officially launch an information-sharing platform, called Pow Power. The companies included Canaan, AvalonMiner, Inter Hash, Huobi Pool, OkEx Pool, and others.
Pow Power’s official letter indicated that censorship played a major role in causing the initial pandemic in China. Public demand for a more trustworthy and transparent means of communication ultimately inspired the mining community to build Pow Power.
According to the announcement, a transparent standard reference index will be released first on Pow Power. It added that:
“The index reference will be based on market supply and demand, revenue observation and public opinion. The miners and mines’ supply and demand information will be collected and published regularly on the “POW POWER” WeChat public platform.”
The announcement pointed out that problems, such as censored industry information and the monopoly of resources, have caused many mining companies to find it difficult to attract investment and continue to operate.
Demand for transparency and freedom of speech is real
As of press time, China has deployed distributed ledger technologies to track and record medical supplies, charity donations, and monitor the spread of the virus.
Other actions have been taken as well, amid China’s censorship of coronavirus-related content. As Cointelegraph reported previously, Chinese journalist, Sarah Zheng of the South China Morning Post, used the Ethereum blockchain network to bypass Chinese government censorship to store interview content online.
